S'bu Zikode on 'Living Politics' (2007)

S'bu Zikode on the University of Abahlali baseMjondolo (2007)

"There is Marikana everyday in South Africa" - an interview with Abahlali baseMjondolo

Pratiques Fanoniennes en Afrique Du Sud: De Steve Biko a Abahlali baseMjondolo

Etat d’Exception

Avant-propos

Richard Pithouse nous a parlé la première fois de Frantz Fanon quand nous avions affaire à des arrestations, après notre premier barrage routier [en 2005]. Il a dit que Fanon avait écrit que chaque génération doit découvrir sa mission, la remplir ou la trahir. Fanon a découvert ce que nous avions découvert au sein de notre génération : si vous êtes sérieux quant à la victoire, quant à réussir à humaniser le monde, même un peu, alors votre lutte doit être une politique vivante. Elle doit être détenue et formée – dans la pensée et dans l’action – par des hommes et des femmes ordinaires. Si chaque gogo (grand-mère) ne comprend pas votre politique, alors vous êtes sur la voie d’un autre système hiérarchisé. Vous courez également le risque de vous retrouver livrés à vous-mêmes face à la répression.

Despite the state's violence, our fight to escape the mud and fire of South Africa's slums will continue

S'bu Zikode, UnFreedom Day, Kennedy Road, 27 April 2009

S'bu Zikode, The Guardian

Our movement of shack-dwellers – Abahlali baseMjondolo, representing some of South Africa's poorest people – was formed in 2005 in Durban and now has more than 12,000 members in more than 60 shack settlements. We campaign against evictions, and for public housing: struggling for a world in which human dignity comes before private profit, and land, cities, wealth and power are shared fairly.

When Abahlali baseMjondolo members take our place in cities we take it humbly, but firmly. We have won many important battles in court, including the overturning of the anti-poor Slums Act – but the law has not bought justice. Despite that victory, thousands of shack dwellers were forcibly removed to make way for developments ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Most were dumped in transit camps, left to rot without basic services. Some camps – such as Isipingo, south of Durban – were built on flood plains.

S'bu Zikode's full talk on repression in Durban, Rhodes University, 10 October 2013

Oppi TV: Abahlali and "the politic of blood"

HAVE YOU HEARD FROM DURBAN?? MARIKANA CONTINUES!!!

• Three people have been assassinated and others have been shot with live ammunition by state police

• There have been daily evictions and on-going police brutality

• The state has declared war on its poor citizens

Sbu Zikode to Speak at Rhodes University on Thursday 10 October

The Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) in Grahamstown has contacted S’bu Zikode, Chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo. He has agreed to speak at Rhodes about state repression and the situation in Durban.

On Wednesday, Dear Mandela will be screened at Rhodes to provide those interested with an over-view of Abm’s struggles. The Multi-award winning documentary produced by Rhodes Graduate, Dara Kell in 2011 follows the story of how Abm was able to take legal action against the state resulting in a court ruling the KZN Slums Act unconstitutional.

When: Wednesday, 9th October 2013

Where: Arts Major

Time: 18:30

S'bu Zikode, Richard Pithouse and Pallo Jordon Debating the Record of the ANC in Oslo

Party Politic Vs Living Politic in Kennedy Road

University of KwaZulu-Natal Forum Lecture

Thursday 22 October 2009

Party Politic Vs Living Politic in Kennedy Road

The Kennedy Road settlement, like all other Abahlali baseMjondolo settlements, has been embarking on a living politic.

This politic is a living politic because it talks about the realities of our democracy – a democracy that serves the interests of a minority while the majority our people continue to live and to die in inhuman conditions.

Our living politic talks about the fact that shack settlements have been denied life saving basic services such as water and sanitation. It talks about the fact that there is no road access, no refuse collection and no electricity. It talks about the fact that people’s lives need services like electricity.

“We are all S’bu Zikode”

Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

“We are all S’bu Zikode”

Abahlali baseMjondolo is a movement of the poor that struggles to protect, promote and advance the dignity of the poor in South Africa. One of our roles is to bring the government to the people and the people to the government.

South Africa’s Great Change

S'bu Zikode's talk at the 30th anniversary of the 1981 protests against the Springbok tour of New Zealand

I wish to thank Global Peace and Justice, in Auckland, for inviting me to New Zealand to speak on the progress of post-apartheid South Africa and the birth of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA. I also wish to thank Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, the movement that I am part of, for trusting me with the responsibility of representing it.

S’bu Zikode’s Presentation at the Fanon Colloquium, Rhodes University July 9, 2011 (rough transcription)

The idea that shack dwellers can think and that Abahlali can sustain its autonomy has created a crisis. There is a price to be paid for such thinking, for such autonomy.

The university is slowly opening spaces for grassroots organizations and some of us have fought hard for a relationship of equality between grassroots organizations and the university. We appreciate that Nigel Gibson has brought Fanon into conversation with us, with our struggle and our thinking. The conversation has been very rich and also difficult. We speak of Fanon from our own working environment. What hasn’t been covered in these 4 days is that Fanon was an activist, committed to daily work with people, talking with people.

To Resist All Degradations & Divisions

S’bu Zikode interviewed by Richard Pithouse, Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 April 2009

Click here to read an annotated version of this interview in pdf and here to read a summary.

Tell me something about where you were born and who your family were.

I was born in a village called Loskop which is near the town called Estcourt. It is in the Natal Midlands. I was born in 1975. I have a twin sister, her name is Thoko. We are now the last born. I have two other sisters. I also had a brother who passed away so I am the only son.

Video Interviews from the Church Land Programme Fanon Event in May 2011

S'bu Zikode
Itumeleng Mosala
Ntombifuthi Shandu
Nigel Gibson
Zodwa Nsibande
Richard Pithouse
Rev. Mavuso
Michael Neocosmos
Busi Ngema

We are the Third Force

by S'bu Zikode, 2005, via LibCom

The shack dwellers’ movement that has given hope to thousands of people in Durban is always being accused of being part of the Third Force. In newspapers and in all kinds of meetings this is said over and over again. They even waste money investigating the Third Force. We need to address this question of the Third Force so that people don’t become confused.

Graham Philpott introduces S'bu Zikode's Foreword to Nigel Gibson's 'Fanonian Practices in South Africa'

Zikode's powerful contribution is the Foreword to Nigel Gibson's Fanonian Practices in South Africa (2011). Reflecting on the relationship between Fanon and the 'living politics' of the South African shack-dweller movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Zikode reckons that "Fanon discovered what we [in the Abahlali] have discovered ...: if you are serious about victory, about succeeding to humanise the world, even a little bit, then your struggle ... must be owned and shaped in thought and in action by ordinary men and women".

Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks

by Zodwa Nsibande & S'bu Zikode, via LibCom

Friday, 16 July 2010
Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks

People all over South Africa have been asking the leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo as to why the government continues to ignore the demands of the shack dwellers. They have been asking why after all the marches, statements, reports and meetings the Kennedy Road settlement continues to get burnt down through the endless shack fires. They have been referring in particular to the recent Kennedy Road shack fire on Sunday, 4 July 2010 that took four lives, leaving more than three thousand people displaced and homeless.